Includes bibliographic references and index.

Decolonizing the world : on Mamdani's thought / Kuan-Hsing Chen -- Of citizen(s) and subject(s) : Mamdani on research, methods, and commitments in postcolonial Africa / Siba N'Zatioula Grovogui -- Thinking with citizen and subject / Talal Asad -- Beyond the custom/market dichotomy : women's rights to land and the challenge of the commons / Nivedita Menon -- Empire in the era of DIY colonialism : barbarism or slavery in the (post)colonial context? / Abdelwahab El-Affendi -- The contemporary challenge of citizenship in Ethiopia and the role of empire in the making of subject populations / Namhla Thando Matshanda -- Political identity and postcolonial democracy / Karuna Mantena -- Colonial legacies of ethnicized violence, gendered subjectivity, and feminist emancipatory politics / Lyn Ossome -- The bifurcated society : citizen and subject in contemporary South Africa / Steven Friedman -- Predicaments of the colonized : being coloured, Indian, and free after apartheid / Suren Pillay -- The legacy of Bandung / Partha Chatterjee -- Looking back, looking forward / Mahmood Mamdani.

"This volume brings together reflections on citizenship, political violence, race, ethnicity and gender, by some of the most critical voices of our times. Detailed and wide-ranging individual reflections, take the writings of prominent Ugandan political theorist Mahmood Mamdani as a touchstone for thinking about the world from Africa. Contributors apply this theory to argue that we cannot make sense of the political contentions of difference, identity and citizenship today without understanding the legacies of colonial rule on our world. Chapters examine the persistence of the past, and how we must reckon with its tragedies, its injustices, and its utopias in order to chart a new politics; the politics of possible futures that are more inclusive and more egalitarian, and that can think of difference in more equitable ways. In a time when the call to decolonize knowledge, and politics rings loud and clear, this is both a timely and a crucial intervention"-- Provided by publisher.